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

game-show host was going mental, and Italian game-show hosts have got going mental down to the finest of fine arts.
    The audience was cheering and I felt like joining in. Lomax picked up the remote from the bedside cabinet and hit the off button. ‘Shit, Roger!’ said the occupant of the bed. ‘I was watching that.’ I almost added that I was too, but thought better of it.
    â€˜Trash, meet Nick Sharman,’ said Lomax.
    â€˜Hi,’ said the man in the bed.
    â€˜Nick, this is Danny Shapiro – Trash to his friends.’
    â€˜How do you do?’ I said.
    â€˜How British,’ said Shapiro. ‘You guys kill me.’
    â€˜Someone nearly did,’ I said.
    That brought the jollity level in the room down to a manageable level.
    â€˜Yeah,’ said Shapiro.
    â€˜Who?’ I asked.
    He shrugged in his silk jammies.
    You’re a big help, I thought. ‘Is your doctor about?’ I asked.
    â€˜Sure,’ said Lomax. ‘On constant call. The prices we’re paying…’ He was getting tedious.
    â€˜Let’s call him then.’
    Lomax shrugged and walked out of the room. ‘No idea?’ I asked Shapiro.
    â€˜None, honest to God, man. I know this isn’t the friendliest of businesses in the world, but murder…’ He shuddered at the thought, and for a moment he wasn’t a big, tough rock ‘n’ roller, just a scared geezer looking for justification. ‘A joke or an accident, it had to be.’
    I lifted an eyebrow. I’m quite good at it. ‘Some joke,’ I said. ‘Where exactly did you get the gear?’
    â€˜Like I told Dodge and the Doc, I don’t know.’ He looked sincere enough, but somehow it just didn’t ring true.
    â€˜Come on,’ I said. ‘Do you usually stick any old thing up your nose?’
    â€˜No, man, I get good stuff.’
    â€˜Usually.’
    He nodded.
    â€˜It’s strange that no one else took it,’ I said.
    â€˜You know how it is. I stash a little here, a little there. For lean times, you know.’
    I knew.
    â€˜So you think it might just have been lying around?’
    â€˜Could be.’
    â€˜Or did someone give it to you that night?’ I asked. ‘Just you. And watched you take it.’
    â€˜Maybe. Christ, I can’t remember! I was so out of it.’
    Terrific, I thought. The geezer’s rotted his brain with drugs, and I’m supposed to get some sense out of him. Unless, of course, he was lying.
    â€˜Try and remember, will you?’
    â€˜I’ll try. But, man, my mind’s a blank.’
    A not unusual state of affairs, I surmised. But even so, I wasn’t sure that I believed him.
    We were interrupted when Lomax came back with a slight, blond man with clear-rimmed spectacles and a clean white coat.
    â€˜Doctor O’Connell, Nick Sharman,’ he introduced us.
    â€˜Can we talk, Doctor?’ I asked. ‘In private.’
    The doctor took me out into the hall. ‘Before we start,’ I said, ‘I know the ethics, but this could be attempted murder.’
    â€˜Don’t I know it. I told them they should inform the authorities. They refused adamantly.’
    â€˜What was it?’ I asked.
    â€˜I’ll show you.’ He took me along the corridor and into a small office containing just a desk, two chairs and a filing cabinet. He took a set of keys from his trouser pocket and opened a drawer in the desk. He took a white paper wrapping from the drawer. ‘Heroin,’ he said. ‘His wife found this in the wastepaper basket.’
    â€˜Was there enough left to analyse?’
    â€˜Yes. Street grade. Maybe a bit better than that. But full of impurities. Caffeine, baby laxative, glucose… not a connoisseur’s choice. In the parlance of the junkie, it’s been stepped on heavily. If some of these people knew what they were taking…’
    â€˜If it had been pure?’ I