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know it.
I do have a boyfriend. I reminded him. Can t imagine Quick with a lady-in-waiting. Not becoming
respectable, is he?
He doesn t know the meaning of the word. What I ve heard is, every now and again one of them in
the big house fancies a bit of rough. Expect that s the reason.
He pulled up outside Fulrose Court and turned towards me again. In the same flat voice he said,
Give us a kiss, Bendy.
What?
Go on, why not? Before you go, give us a kiss.
What harm could there be in a kiss? The request was a big improvement on his offer last time, to
give me a quick one in the back of the car. He had not turned off the engine, so he was probably just
being friendly. I leaned forward and gently touched my lips on his. He pulled me to him, hugged me
tightly and pushed his tongue into my mouth. After perhaps half a minute he let me go.
You excite me, you know. I m a happily married man, but you excite me.
I don t play around, well, not these days. Dale& my boyfriend& we really want things to work out
for us. It s not because I don t like you, but my partner is in and he s waiting for me.
Okay, if that s how it is. No hard feelings. Let me know if you change your mind. He shrugged and
turned away. I got out of the car and said goodbye.
To give myself time to think, when the lift doors closed I did not immediately push the button for
the sixth floor. Might refusing The Handyman a second time have harmed my chances of at last
meeting Rick Schwagger? Casual sex might well be a sort of entry ticket to their world. Yet, Dale was
more important to me than anything or anyone else, even more important than the chance of working
on Quick s auto biography.
67
© Alan Keslian
Eleven
The next time he took me to The Rocking Boulders villa, The Handyman promised that Rick
Schwagger himself would be there. I was nervous already because the compartments in the maracas
remained empty of drugs. How Rick, with his reputation for turning nasty, would react to me was even
more of a worry.
Perhaps being on edge made me want to talk, for on the way I complained about the difficulty of
finding information for the auto biography. For once, The Handyman was sympathetic. Tell you the
truth, he said, I never thought much of all that mumbo jumbo about astrology, tarot cards and juju
beads. You were worth encouraging, not because of all that mystic twaddle, but because you cheer Teef
up, and that s not easy these days. Trouble is, we can t tell Quick that, he s sold on the idea of you being
psychic. When you meet him, particularly this being the first time, try not to say anything that might
aggravate him. Thing to remember is that he has a very short attention span, so if you can keep
chatting about a subject for maybe a minute, sometimes half a minute will do, by the time you stop, his
mind will have wandered off. Doesn t guarantee he won t meander back to it, but if he does you just
bluff him again till he s thinking of something else.
In this business you have to find your way round dozens of obstacles to survive. Trying to work out
what to do can make your head hurt. Doing the book, and keeping Quick and Teef happy at the same
time, is not going to be easy. A good thing to mention to Quick is money, like who is going to get what
percentage. Anything that might lead to a big wad of notes will have a magic effect on his powers of
concentration. The thought of earning yet more cash to add to his millions will occupy him for, ooh,
might be as long as two whole minutes. If you ve got a few pages of notes to show him, that should
keep him happy for now, but be very careful what you say to him. If he shows any sign of turning
nasty, do a runner. Don t let him get between you and the door. You re not on your own, I ll try to keep
things steady.
What do you mean by him turning nasty ? Does he get violent?
Not sure if you would call it violent exactly & Well, it is in a way. He s developed a ruthless streak.
Bullying, you might call it. Or assault. Highly unlikely you ll come in for aggravation. I m good at
calming him down, but be on your guard just in case.
His manner was calm and relaxed, despite giving this sphinx-like warning. When we arrived at the
villa, quiet determination had replaced my earlier trepidation. If Quick took an instant dislike to me and
kicked me out, I would be disappointed, but he was not about to decide my fate. Life with Dale and
work at the bookshop would carry on as before. With luck, other opportunities would come along.
The Handyman pointed at the holdall. You don t usually bring anything with you. What you got in
there?
Maracas.
Teef s not trying to pull the old trick of filling maracas with dope, is he? You d better let me see.
I took them out of the bag and said, The handles are hollow and you can unscrew them; there are
68
© Alan Keslian
hidden compartments at the top too. They re empty. He did ask me to fill them with gear. I said no, but
he wouldn t let it go. It was useless him asking me, I ve never gone in for drugs. I picked them up
without thinking when I left the villa last time. You can open them up and see for yourself, if you want.
He shook his head. I believe you, but see what I mean about needing to be careful? You ve built
Teef s hopes up now. Always tell me about problems like that, I know how to handle things. He shook
his head and sighed. So you ve never gone in for drugs. There seem to be a lot of things you aren t
into, things we normally take for granted in this game.
Before we entered the villa, we looked at each other, eye to eye, for a few moments. He appeared to
be waiting for me to say or do something, so I walked towards him and put a friendly arm round his
shoulders. He hugged me briefly and then let me go. All right, he said, I ll make sure you re okay. Teef
does find it hard to go without his gear, but the medics say another binge will probably kill him. He
can t stop himself once he starts& if you d seen the terrible states he s been in. Tell you what, here s a
few miniature bottles of Jack Daniel s. I always have some handy in case he gets desperate. Say you
managed to sneak them past me. That should soften his disappointment. Even his booze is rationed
these days.
Gratefully I put the little bottles of Teef s favourite spirit into the holdall. Previously the house had
been quiet when we arrived, but now the sound of one of The Rocking Boulders hits, Black Treacle, a
number one in the nineteen-seventies, drifted into the hall:
Black treacle, she gave it to me,
Black treacle, how good it can be,
Black treacle, if you look you can see,
Black treacle, she put her hand on my knee.
This was obviously a recording, not Quick and Teef upstairs playing live. Not having heard the song
for ages, I had forgotten how catchy it was. The raunchy vocal was brilliantly matched by Teef s edgy
guitar riff. My pulse quickened as we approached the door to the upstairs lounge. The music stopped
and I could hear one of the most famous voices in rock and roll say: Er, well, you know, to be quick,
right, you know as well as I do like, well, right, quick, what I mean to say is, you know&
Timidly I hung back, not wanting to interrupt Quick s flow of ideas, but The Handyman grabbed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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