“I hope you didn’t say that to the queen.”
“Course not,” said Sir Richard Blackmon. “Asked her if she knew the one about the three priests who walked into a pub—Anglican, Lutheran, and Protestant.”
Neither man made a motion to shake the other’s hand.
Richard “Dickie” Blackmon was a towering presence all the way around: size, personality, and influence. He stood six feet two inches tall, two hundred fifty pounds easy, muscle gone to fat long ago. He wore a navy-blue pin-striped suit, white shirt, and pink silk necktie with a Windsor knot as big as Simon’s fist. He was not a handsome man. Watery blue eyes, a bloodhound’s jowls, a nose that stuck out like a thumb and was decorated by a road map of broken blood vessels. He wore his thinning reddish hair swept off his forehead and long in the back. Several prominent rings made his enormous hands appear even bigger, great sparkling mitts that swung through the air to underscore his words. When Dickie Blackmon entered a room, people took notice. He liked it that way.
“Why the long face?” asked Dickie when Simon failed to smile. “You could give aspirin a headache.”
“Probably the sight of your Roller out front. We service real automobiles here. Not half-million-pound monuments to your ego.”
“I didn’t know a man could bear a grudge for ten years. I’m impressed.”
“Not easy,” said Simon. “I’ll grant you that. But against a real bastard, it can be done.”
“Present and accounted for,” said Dickie Blackmon, expansively. Then with an earnest aside: “The Simon Riske I knew would never have uttered an expletive.”
That Simon Riske had been a private banker employed by one of the City’s most prestigious institutions. Back then, Dickie Blackmon had been among his biggest clients. In a sense, Simon knew him better than most, certainly better than Blackmon would like others to. Dickie Blackmon had earned his money in commodities—silver, gold, unobtainium—and, later, real estate and property development. His code of conduct lay somewhere between the gilded side of crime and the tarnished side of business.
“What do you want, Dickie? You’ve got your CBE and your soccer team. I can’t imagine what brings you to my neck of the woods. Don’t you turn to stone if you get too far from Belgravia?”
“How about a drink to start?”
“Look around you. This is an auto shop, notClaridge’s.”
“You’re telling me. I know a good cleaning service. Have this place sorted out in a day. Happy to foot the bill.”
“I like it the way it is,” said Simon. “If you want a drink, I’m sure there’s one in your car. Doesn’t your Roller run on single malt instead of gasoline?”
“I’m a gin man, as you know. Boodles, if you’d like to make a note for my next visit.”
“I’d forgotten, Dickie. You can bet that I didn’t forget everything else.”
“May I sit?”
Simon took a seat behind his desk and motioned his unannounced guest toward the couch. With distaste, Dickie Blackmon moved the files and magazines and bric-a-brac until he had space to sit. The two men looked at each other. It was a duel. The weaker man spoke first. Finally, Dickie Blackmon cleared his throat. “I’ve heard around town that you’re some kind of problem solver. Find people. Find money. Root out a crook here, a thief there. Bottom line: you’re a man who gets things done. And discreetly. Quiet as a church mouse.”
Simon tapped his armrest, noticing that his knuckles were bloodied. So much for discretion. “I’m sure you know plenty of people like me,” he said, taking care to keep his hand out of sight.
“Like you, yes, but not you. You’re family. Well, almost.”
Simon couldn’t help but smile. Dickie Blackmon must be up some kind of creek to suggest he was family. Not after all he’d done to prevent Simon from being just that.
“Spill, Dickie. I’m as wet and ready as I’ll ever be.”
“I see the time away from the bank has done wonders for your social skills.”
“Just you wait.”
Dickie leaned forward, his blue eyes like lasers. “Listen here, Riske. Serious business. It’s about my daughter, Delphine.”
Ten years after the fact, the mention of her name made Simon forget about everything else. “Is she in trouble?”
“In a manner of speaking. It’s her husband.”
“Rafa?”
“Señor Rafael Andrés Henrique de Bourbon. One and the same. Seems my son-in-law has been arrested by the Thai police and thrown into the klink on charges of blackmail, extortion, and theft, with assault and attempted injury to a police officer thrown in for good measure.”
