Read Online The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman by Stephen Leather - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Stephen Leather
Tags: thriller, Suspense, Literature & Fiction, Action & Adventure, Crime, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Crime Fiction, Thrillers & Suspense, Thriller & Suspense
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take it personally and that if it would make me feel any better then OK, I could take a swing at him but wouldn’t I really prefer that he bought me a good lunch?
To make myself feel better I ordered the most expensive items on the menu, but by the end of lunch we were laughing and joking and the prospect of Scottish Corporate Advisors losing a takeover battle didn’t seem like the end of the world. He became a firm friend, I’d trust him with my life if not my money, David loved him, and after Shona he was the first person I rang when my father died. He was on the first Shuttle up to Edinburgh, I cried on his shoulder and he helped organize the funeral and sat by me at the inquest.
As it turned out Scottish Corporate Advisors didn’t win or lose the fight for Young’s. The West Midlands company suddenly lost interest and I wasn’t altogether surprised when our client decided to drop out, too. Tony got his fingers burnt to the tune of £30,000, though he managed to cut his losses by selling his shares at a much lower price to an Edinburgh life office which saw Young’s as a possible recovery situation.
It was only much later that I discovered Shona had phoned down to Birmingham and dropped a few hints about what Tony was up to. She’s a lot harder underneath than I am, and she bears grudges, but now even she’d warmed to Tony. There was still a vague wariness about her whenever he was near, though.
Eventually word got round and Tony found it harder and harder to play the takeover game, and some eighteen months ago he’d joined up with a friend from his old university and now worked as an armaments middleman, selling mainly to the Middle East and doing a fair amount of juggling with end-user certificates. It was far from being a clean business, Tony had to make up most of the rules as he went along, and that often meant shunting money into Swiss bank accounts and encouraging buyers with wine, women and cocaine. With Tony it was just business, nothing personal.
*
As soon as I arrived back in London I phoned Tony and offered to take him for a drink that evening in a wine bar down the road from his Mayfair office. He was already sitting at a brass and glass table nursing a white wine and soda when I arrived.
‘Doctor’s orders, sport,’ he said after he’d jumped to his feet, and shook my hand and slapped my back and rattled my teeth. ‘Told me to lay off the hard stuff, liver trouble and all that. Can’t say I like this muck, though. And it’s about twice the price of a half-decent whisky.’
‘You can afford it, Tony, stop complaining,’ I laughed. ‘I’ve seen you collect enough receipts to know the sort of expenses you get. Just to make you feel bad I’ll have a double Glenmorangie, and you can pay for it.’
He slouched over to the bar, tall and fair in a dark blue business suit and highly polished shoes. He’d grown a moustache since the funeral and it added about fifteen years to his long, thin face. A thick rectangle of black hair, it half covered a thin scar that ran from the left side of his lip up to the middle of his cheek. The few times I’d asked him about the scar he’d laughed it off with jokes about jealous husbands, scorned lovers and frustrated business partners and after a while I’d stopped asking. There was a lot I didn’t know about Tony Walker but I loved him like a brother.
He brought the tumbler of malt back to the table and sat opposite me, careful to cross his legs so that the sole of his shoe faced away from me, a hangover from dealing with Arabs. He caught my look and smiled, reaching for the peanuts on the table with his left hand, just to show me that he wasn’t fully converted to Middle East customs.
‘How’s the lovely Shona?’ he asked.
‘She’s fine. Sends her best.’ Not true, she didn’t know I was going to see him.
To make myself feel better I ordered the most expensive items on the menu, but by the end of lunch we were laughing and joking and the prospect of Scottish Corporate Advisors losing a takeover battle didn’t seem like the end of the world. He became a firm friend, I’d trust him with my life if not my money, David loved him, and after Shona he was the first person I rang when my father died. He was on the first Shuttle up to Edinburgh, I cried on his shoulder and he helped organize the funeral and sat by me at the inquest.
As it turned out Scottish Corporate Advisors didn’t win or lose the fight for Young’s. The West Midlands company suddenly lost interest and I wasn’t altogether surprised when our client decided to drop out, too. Tony got his fingers burnt to the tune of £30,000, though he managed to cut his losses by selling his shares at a much lower price to an Edinburgh life office which saw Young’s as a possible recovery situation.
It was only much later that I discovered Shona had phoned down to Birmingham and dropped a few hints about what Tony was up to. She’s a lot harder underneath than I am, and she bears grudges, but now even she’d warmed to Tony. There was still a vague wariness about her whenever he was near, though.
Eventually word got round and Tony found it harder and harder to play the takeover game, and some eighteen months ago he’d joined up with a friend from his old university and now worked as an armaments middleman, selling mainly to the Middle East and doing a fair amount of juggling with end-user certificates. It was far from being a clean business, Tony had to make up most of the rules as he went along, and that often meant shunting money into Swiss bank accounts and encouraging buyers with wine, women and cocaine. With Tony it was just business, nothing personal.
*
As soon as I arrived back in London I phoned Tony and offered to take him for a drink that evening in a wine bar down the road from his Mayfair office. He was already sitting at a brass and glass table nursing a white wine and soda when I arrived.
‘Doctor’s orders, sport,’ he said after he’d jumped to his feet, and shook my hand and slapped my back and rattled my teeth. ‘Told me to lay off the hard stuff, liver trouble and all that. Can’t say I like this muck, though. And it’s about twice the price of a half-decent whisky.’
‘You can afford it, Tony, stop complaining,’ I laughed. ‘I’ve seen you collect enough receipts to know the sort of expenses you get. Just to make you feel bad I’ll have a double Glenmorangie, and you can pay for it.’
He slouched over to the bar, tall and fair in a dark blue business suit and highly polished shoes. He’d grown a moustache since the funeral and it added about fifteen years to his long, thin face. A thick rectangle of black hair, it half covered a thin scar that ran from the left side of his lip up to the middle of his cheek. The few times I’d asked him about the scar he’d laughed it off with jokes about jealous husbands, scorned lovers and frustrated business partners and after a while I’d stopped asking. There was a lot I didn’t know about Tony Walker but I loved him like a brother.
He brought the tumbler of malt back to the table and sat opposite me, careful to cross his legs so that the sole of his shoe faced away from me, a hangover from dealing with Arabs. He caught my look and smiled, reaching for the peanuts on the table with his left hand, just to show me that he wasn’t fully converted to Middle East customs.
‘How’s the lovely Shona?’ he asked.
‘She’s fine. Sends her best.’ Not true, she didn’t know I was going to see him.
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