The Snowman (28 page)

“Larry has been after Rossi for quite some time. When you suddenly got mixed up in it, well, of course that upset our plans a little. But then you called us of your own accord. Lucky for you, Blum.”

“Lucky for me? You're telling me you'd have got the money away from me, and now you say I was lucky?”

“We're not interested in the money, Blum,” Larry put in.

“I can imagine. You all have pretty well-paid jobs, as far as I can tell.”

“You really make a useless drugs dealer,” said Hackensack equably. “Hopefully that'll dawn on you some time. It really is best to leave the narcotics business to pros and the government these days. So now let me tell you something else. Like Larry just said, we're not so interested in the money. We want to retire, preferably to a country where we can hold the reins ourselves. Everyone dreams of his own little island kingdom where he's the boss, am I right? Well, we've found ours. Ever heard of Abaco?”

Blum stared wordlessly at Hackensack.

“No, that'll have been before your time. I dare say you were still freshening up icons with gold leaf and so on around then. Anyway, Abaco is an island in the Bahamas, and a few years back there was this idealistic millionaire who'd always fancied running his little own state and playing Lord Bountiful there. So he recruited one of our top people to liberate the island from the Bahamas. The plan almost worked, too, only the agent came to grief over Watergate. So the Great Revolution of Abaco never took place. Having your own republic is not just fun, you know – it's very good, lucrative business too. From the stamps to the free port to the casinos. See what I'm getting at?”

Blum lit an HB. His last but one. Time was getting on.

“The only thing that interests me, Mr Hackensack, is why do you need my cocaine?”

“In the place we've picked for ourselves, five pounds of cocaine gives a lot of prestige, Mr Blum. Here you'd just get money for it, out there it'll provide a basis for our coup.”

“Really? Then buy the cocaine, Mr Hackensack. You're welcome. I'll give you a good discount too. After all, we've known each other since Malta. Let's say fifty grand. Dollars, of course. Or I'll take any other
currency, Mr Hackensack, only it must be in cash. And freshly laundered, if you don't mind.”

Hackensack knocked the ash off his cigar. The leather armchair groaned under his weight. “But Blum, we don't need to buy your cocaine now. We already have it.”

“Maybe you ought to tell him about the job, Harry,” said the Australian.

“Okay. Your performance as a drugs dealer was nothing brilliant, Blum, but of course I realize that these last two weeks do give you a certain right to compensation. And Larry, who knows you better than I do, thinks we could use you in our coup. You look good, you know languages, and I guess something's left over from your activities as an art dealer and a pusher of porn mags. So if you like you can join us.”

“As a brother too,” said Norman, “don't forget that, Harry, he'd be welcome as a brother too.”

Blum stubbed out his cigarette. “Now you listen to me, Mr Hackensack. And you too, brothers. I don't need any job from you, and the hell with your island. You can go to any island, any tiny reef in the world, and it'll be the same old shit. Governments, missions, war. And don't forget plain old robbery with violence. But you don't do it with me. I don't want your power, Hackensack. I don't need a job either, I already have one. I work for Blum and Co. I'm my own firm, my own one-man firm . . .”

“That's not the message your file broadcasts.”

“Well, see, that shows what you get unloaded on you these days in the self-service stores. And as for the snow, Hackensack, I don't want compensation for it. It belongs to me. Either I go out of this door with it or you can use it to clean your teeth. Sekt or seltzer water, Hackensack, it's one or the other for me.”

“What do you have against me?”

“You want to take my stuff and you ask what I have against you?”

“I'm offering you the chance of your life, man!”

“Really? Where? As what? As breakfast manager on your island of Abaco?”

Hackensack looked at Larry. “I told you, Larry, we really can't use the man.”

“You're dead right there,” said Blum, standing up. “You can't use me, not for your purposes.”

“I'm beginning to see why you never managed to get rid of the stuff anywhere, Blum. The way you carry on . . . look, don't make yourself ridiculous. There's no getting around the facts. You had your little chance – it was a tiny one, sure, but it was there – and you didn't know what to do with it. So you just carry on with your porn magazines, your antiques, your butter. You'll see how far that gets you. But the cocaine stays here. I tell you something, regard it as my fee.”

“Fee?”

“You wanted me to advise you, and so I have, Mr Blum. The sum of my advice is: close down your firm and go to hell!”

At the door, Blum looked round again. The red cans shone in the light. They'd worn well. But that was as much as he could say about them now.

The rain was slackening off. The tide broke on the beach and sprayed foam over the buoys, the pebbles, the sand with the dirt and rubbish on it. The sky was a misty grey with pale patches in it, no stars. Far away the lights of a fishing boat danced on the sea. So here he was on the beach, with the gulls perching on the rooftops of the hotels where the lights were going out. Blum switched on the torch the sales rep had given him and flashed the beam over the rolling waves. But what message could he send? Nothing had happened to him. Or what had happened to him was what happened to everyone, every day. SOS, that was the message from every minute spent on land. He threw the torch into the sea. All gone, nothing left of what he had had. He lit his last cigarette. Maybe I ought to light it with my last banknote, he thought, but you're never quite that free. You're still what you always were, you were in luck there, you were what everyone wanted to be, a small-time winner on the long trek between Sekt and seltzer water. A gull began screeching overhead, others followed it, and they raced over the dark waves that were coming closer and closer to Blum as they broke. The sirens of the ferries howled in dock. He heard no footsteps, only the cough slowly approaching. Larry stood by him for some time. The light from the street lamps spread far over the beach, but they themselves remained in the shadows. Flecks of foam swirled over the sand. Finally the Australian threw his
cigarette butt away. The wind swept it over to the promenade.

“You could still come,” called Larry. “I have the tickets.”

“I can buy my own tickets.”

“Hackensack's a good man!”

“You could say that of anyone.”

“And you'd have a good job on the island.”

“Peanuts,” said Blum, who had been thinking of Mr Haq.

“You're never going to manage on your own!”

“I was managing just fine until you lot came along.”

“Islands are getting rare these days, Blum!”

“Too bad.”

“Listen, you don't hold that about the magazines against me, do you? It was all part of the job.”

“And a bloody miserable job too, Larry.”

The Australian did not reply. The waves were lapping over their feet now. Then Larry said, “What will you do now, Blum?”

Yes, what would he do now? Once again he had the problem of choice. Some firms went bust, others carried on. Some people were losers, but that didn't make the rest winners. He threw his cigarette end into the wind and looked at his watch.

“I'm going to see the show at the Roxy Bar,” said Blum.

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