Read Online Zip Gun Boogie by Mark Timlin - Free Book Online Page A

of Ninotchka and me coming out of the Korean restaurant again. I felt as if I had seen the movie. ‘And I wanted discretion,’ he said.
    â€˜No, you didn’t,’ I said back, tapping the paper. ‘You wanted this.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Someone noisy, who stomps around and flushes out whoever is lurking in the wood pile. That’s what you wanted. If you’d wanted discretion you’d have called in Pinkerton’s.’
    At least he had the good grace to look a little sheepish. ‘And another thing,’ he said, ‘what was the big idea of leaving her security man here at the hotel? Why do you think we go to the trouble and expense of hiring these guys? So that they can sit here and watch TV and eat fillet steak at sixty bucks a throw?’
    â€˜She didn’t want him around,’ I said.
    â€˜I don’t give a shit what she didn’t want. It’s what I want that matters. Christ, from what I heard she carried you back here. What good would you have been if someone had been after her last night?’
    There was no answer to that, so I didn’t try.
    â€˜Jesus Christ, Sharman,’ he said.
    â€˜Are you giving me my cards?’ I asked.
    â€˜No,’ he said. ‘I’ve only myself to blame. I should have known that anyone McBain recommended was bound to be a flake.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said.
    â€˜How long will it take you to get dressed?’
    â€˜Should be there by Christmas,’ I replied.
    â€˜I’ll meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes. Remember who’s paying your wages.’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ I said to his back as he left the room.

7
    I showed up present and correct, dressed in more new clothes, shaved and combed, in the lobby exactly nineteen and a half minutes later. Lomax was sitting in one of the overstuffed armchairs reading the US edition of GQ with one elegantly trousered leg crossed over the other. I was equally as elegant in a greeny-grey Valentino suit, cream shirt, and a silk tie whose pattern mimicked the interior of the succulent house at Kew Gardens.
    â€˜Very smart,’ said Lomax.
    â€˜Hospital visiting,’ I said. ‘Got to look crisp.’
    We drove to the Cromwell Hospital in another limo. This one was white. I felt like a bride.
    We travelled the short distance in silence. Whether Lomax was deferring to my hangover, or whether he was still miffed and letting me know it, I don’t know. Myself, I had nothing much to say. I sat and wondered what had happened to Ninotchka. I hadn’t had a chance to find out before meeting Lomax. The car pulled up at the main door of the hospital and we both piled out. The entrance hall was as different from the entrance hall of an NHS hospital as it was possible to be while still in the same business. It was nearly as luxurious as the lobby at Jones’.
    I hated it. I’d seen the insides of enough hospitals, especially casualty departments, to feel distinctly uneasy at the hush and the clean carpets and the corporate air of the place.
    We checked in with a nurse in a Dior uniform and went to a lift that whisked us straight to the top floor. More carpet, luxuriant plants in terracotta pots, and a private room so full of flowers that I half expected the wholesalers from Covent Garden to come and make a job offer.
    In the bed by the window lay a tiny man with a bush of coal-black curls. He was watching TV tuned in to an Italian soft porn quiz show on a cable channel.
    He looked away from the screen as we entered. ‘Check this fox,’ he said. ‘She’s a housewife. Whoever wins the viewer vote gets ten free minutes in the Italian version of Safeway. Shit, I wish she was my old lady.’ An extremely horny-looking blonde was just stepping out of her skirt. She was wearing a bustier, stockings and suspenders. As she bent down to untangle the hem from her stiletto heel, one pink-tipped breast popped out of her top. The