60
The manager’s office was as disappointing as Cook’s room had been. Clearly a ‘behind-the-scenes’ place, no expense wasted on any marble floors, or gold-plated fittings. A utilitarian office, the wall covered with time sheets and other paperwork. It reminded Cook of the staff room at the Lyons.
Cook stood in front of a scuffed desk, the two remaining men behind him, standing guard. The one with the broken finger had slunk back to wherever he’d come from.
Cook had let them escort him to their boss, a mutually acceptable solution to the stand-off without the need for further violence. Cook’s motto, one he’d learnt from his old CO, was that you win every fight you don’t have. Cook had known many men who hadn’t been able to live by that, who ran towards every fight like a drunk towards a pub. Most of those men were dead, and he wasn’t.
The hotel manager himself was another disappointment. Cook had expected someone as grand and imposing as the hotel itself – a personification of the marble floors and crystal chandeliers. But the man sitting behind the desk was a grey-faced pencil-pusher. He resembled the bruisers who’d been sent upstairs to teach Cook what-for. An older brother, or a cousin.
‘Who do you work for?’ he asked.
‘Who do you think I work for?’ Cook asked. ‘You sent your three monkeys to beat me up. Must be someone you’re pretty scared of.’
‘He broke Don’s fingers like it wasn’t nobody’s business,’ the giant said.
‘The Chelsea mob?’ the manager asked. ‘Is this a declaration of war?’
‘Yes,’ Cook said. ‘The Chelsea mob.’
The manager shook his head.
‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘I put in a call. Spoke to Mr Whitcomb himself, down in Chelsea. He didn’t know what I was talking about. Talks a lot of shit a lot of the time, but not this time.’
Cook didn’t respond.
‘Are you working for the Chinese?’ the manager asked.
‘Yes,’ Cook said. He had an intimate working knowledge of many of the triad gangs in Hong Kong. Prostitution was one of their side-rackets.
Cook felt the men behind him shift uncomfortably.
‘Who? Specifically?’
‘Why would I tell you?’ Cook asked. ‘Last time I got on the wrong side of a Chinese gang I nearly lost an ear.’
‘You’re assuming you could leave this room with both ears intact,’ the manager said, his eyes flicking past Cook to the bodyguards.
‘Correct.’
‘You’re overly confident,’ the manager said. ‘You know what they say about pride coming before a fall.’
Cook leant forwards, planting both hands on the desk.
‘You’ve got me,’ he said. ‘I don’t work for the Chinese. I don’t work for the Chelsea mob. I’m looking for a girl. Her name’s Ruby Reynolds.’
The manager stared at him. Probably thought it was unnerving. Probably saw it in a gangster flick.
‘Did the old man send you?’
Cook didn’t respond.
‘Is this some kind of test?’ the manager asked.
61
The second bottle of champagne went a lot faster than the first, and Margaret was fairly sure she’d drunk most of it. Todd and Muggers were good company, and she found herself talking, about herself, her time growing up in India. Some of it was true, most of it was a pastiche – the kind of things people liked to hear about. Tea plantations and Maharajahs. The boys listened attentively, Todd keeping her glass topped up.
Muggers didn’t talk much, just gawped at her. He seemed a bit overawed, which was not at all the case for his friend Todd, he of the Brylcreemed hair.
