All the Colours of the Town by Liam McIlvanney Read Free Book Online Page A

place.’
    The other place was Ferrante’s, an old Sicilian basement in the Merchant City. It was some sort of Party haunt, the place they chose for their victory dinners.
    ‘I don’t know. It’s a little cramped.’
    ‘Peter was hoping Ferrante’s.’
    I sighed.
    ‘Was he hoping a particular time?’
    ‘One-thirty, we thought.’
    I slipped the photo out from under the magazines, put it in my briefcase.
    ‘Bryce?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Can he eat the stuff himself? Can he do that much?’
    ‘He’ll see you at half-one, Gerry.’
    *
     

    On sunny summer afternoons, Glasgow is Manhattan. The buildings instantly lofty, colossal. Black diagonals of shade bisect the traffic, cut across the cabs on St Vincent Street. The city looks like a photograph, black-and-white , something out of Berenice Abbott, Bleecker Street or Union Square.
    Fratelli Ferrante was packed. Usually, on visits here, I’d be shown to the toilet corner, where the two-seaters clustered like bubbles so that you ate with your elbows pressed to your sides. Today, though, I followed the waiter’s twisting hips to the sunflower centre of the floor, to a table right below the bladed fan.
    Lyons was finishing a phone call. He half rose from his seat, his hand raised in greeting and deferral. As I reached the table he snapped the phone shut, glanced at his watch.
    ‘Gerry Conway,’ he said. ‘The late edition.’ The smile showed he was joking. His fingers wiped mine in a brisk shake. There was skittishness, a little flourish to his movements. The eyes were bright, brief scintillas of light fizzing in the blackness. He’s on something, I might have thought; the guy’s buzzed. If I hadn’t known better.
    It was cool: even on a day like this, when shoppers wore the plaintive gaze of martyred saints in Renaissance paintings. Fan-freshened air on my nose and cheeks. You wanted to press the back of your hand to all the restaurant’s surfaces: the dark wood of the chair-backs, the tabletop’s pink marble, the starched napkins that gave off the cool of hotel bedsheets, the blades of the big-handled butter-knives.
    There was no menu on the table.
    ‘The special’s sole. And it is special, in here. I took the liberty.’ He had fished a bottle from an ice-bucket beside the table and was filling my glass. ‘I hope that’s OK?’
    I hung my jacket on the chair. ‘That’s great, Peter. Spot on.’
    He laughed. ‘It is Friday after all.’
    The wine was cold, sharp, appley. It tasted pleasantly neutral, as if the chill had dulled its flavours.
    The place was busy. Business suits and well-heeled shoppers. A toothy woman three tables away had noticed Lyons; she was leaning over to her companion, fixing Lyons with that furtive, hungry squint that is so much more blatant than a stare.
    ‘What’s the occasion?’
    Lyons chuckled, shook his head. ‘I’m meeting an old friend,’ he said. ‘Do I need an excuse?’ He lifted the bottle again. Lyons didn’t drink, but he made sure your glass was full. I’d noticed this about him, how he was always buying rounds, pouring wine, as if his continence wasn’t enough on its own; it needed the relief of the other guy’s indulgence.
    ‘All right. Keys, OK? I’ve a couple of things I thought you could use.’
    I pushed my cutlery aside to make room for my notebook . Lyons sighed, then leaned towards me. I wrote while he talked, getting it down, stopping now and then for a gulp of wine. He spoke in a low tone, unhurried, matching his words to the speed of my pen. He gazed off while he spoke, glancing down now and then – I could sense the big chin tipping towards me – to check on my progress with an air of slightly pained distraction, like he was waiting for someone to finish pissing. As summer stories go, these ones were worth a punt. Lyons was announcing a review into ‘slopping out’ in Scottish jails. He also leaked me a report into private prison finance. These were fine, but the third was a page lead. A