Jack Carter's Law Read Online Free Page A

wit.
    “We thought he might have nicked you for being double- parked,” Les says in his humourless voice.
    Audrey gives Gerald and Les their drinks, then pretends to remember that I’m there and I just might want one as well.
    “Do you want one, Jack?” she says.
    Gerald laughs and says, “Do you want one, Jack? Eh, Audrey, why don’t you give him one?”
    He almost falls off the settee, he’s laughing so hard.
    “No thanks,” I say to Audrey, looking her straight in the eye. “I had one before I came here.”
    Les frowns and says, “You dropped off for a drink before you came here?”
    “That’s right.”
    Les looks at Gerald and Gerald says to me, “Listen, you mug, we told you to come straight back here. What’s the fucking idea?”
    I look at Les and say, “Les, I left Cross three-quarters of an hour ago. After what he told me I didn’t think a swift vodka and tonic would make all that much difference.”
    “Why?”
    I take out my cigarettes and light up.
    “Because,” I tell them, “it’s my opinion that Jimmy has been done good and proper and he’s weighed up twenty-five years against appearing for the Queen. Against us. And various other past associates that we don’t need to mention here.”
    Gerald stands up and begins to turn bright red. “Bollocks!” he says. “Bloody bollocks. Christ, what, with Finbow? Jesus, all Finbow has to do is pick up the phone and he’s a few grand better off and Jimmy walks out a victim of circumstances. Besides, Jimmy’d never shop us. He’s Jack the Lad. Jesus, Jimmy and me are like bleeding cousins. From way back.”
    “In any case,” Les says as he lights a new cigarette from the end of his old one, “the cunt wouldn’t dare.”
    “No,” Gerald says. “He’s right. The cunt wouldn’t dare.”
    I shrug. There is a silence. Audrey crosses her legs and the nylons sound like static on a cheap transistor.
    Les pushes his hands in the pockets of his jacket and the smoke from the cigarette in his mouth causes him to narrow his eyes and hold his head back so that he’s squinting up at the ceiling.
    “Is that what you really think?” he says.
    “Well,” I say, “look at it this way. Jimmy was at Norwood. He was at Walthamstow. He was at Ealing. He was at
Finsbury Park. Granted that wasn’t one of ours but it’s another job. He was at Luton and he was at Dulwich and we all know what happened there.”
    There is more silence and so I go on.
    “At a rough calculation, I make it that Jimmy has done about a million and a half quids’ worth of overtime for us over the last six or seven years. A real little cornerstone to the firm he’s been. A right sweet little catch he’d make for some rising star in West End Central.”
    “Yes, but Jack,” Gerald says, “it’s Finbow, for fuck’s sake. Herbert fucking Finbow.”
    “If it was Finbow that plucked Jimmy, he’d have phoned by now. And in any case Jimmy’s been put out of the way. Finbow’d never do that. Unless Finbow’s had the operation.”
    Gerald snorts. “Oh, yes, and I’m a fucking fairy.”
    I shrug again.
    “Why don’t we get in touch with Finbow and find out?” Les asks, as if I should have done it already.
    “If it’s Finbow, there’s no point,” I say wearily. “If it’s not Finbow, there’s still no point. Can’t you see what I’m trying to say? Jimmy’s being done proper. So whoever’s doing him we can’t get to. They’re sticking it on him.
And because they’re sticking it on him they’ve made
him some kind of offer so that it looks good for him to stick it on us.”
    “Yeah, but look,” Gerald says, “supposing he gets offered fifteen instead of twenty-five. Christ, that’s not big enough for him to drop in everybody else.”
    “You’ve got more faith in Jimmy Swann than his mother ever had,” I tell Gerald.
    Les gets up from the edge of the desk and walks over to the drinks cabinet.
    “Anyhow,” he says, “even if he took the ten years’