Painkillers by Simon Ings Read Free Book Online

breathing fire into her face. Sweat had broken on my forehead, that had nothing to do with the gas fire. Even I could smell it. Whisky, Wray & Nephew, last night's wine and God knows what else. She really should have taken the hint.
    'Would you like another?' said Zoe, reinforcing the obvious point.
    'Leave him alone,' Money said.
    None of us said very much for a while. We had moved into new territory. Black water. The deep dead sea where deals rise like foam off the tip of an oar - and last about as long. There is nothing so evanescent as organised crime.
    'I want you to tidy up Jimmy's affairs,' Money said. 'Turn as much as you can into legitimate interests. Liquidate the rest.'
    The enormity of it misfooted me. I struggled not to laugh.
    'Is that so unreasonable a request?'
    I turned to Zoe. The kid who thought she could show me up with a couple of shots of Glenlivet. 'Is this what you've been up to, Zoe?' It was too absurd. 'Taking apart a triad?'
    She sighed. 'We control fifty money-changers in the Hong Kong-Kowloon region. Four money transmitters, a securities broker, two remittance corporations. Dad shut down Miami operations in '95, once FinCEN got wind of our Mexican giro house investments, and converted them to roubles. Thirty billion, all ready to plough into St Petersburg, only the Florence DIA arrested dad's co-investor. He managed to divert about half our moneys into arranging exports of Kazakhstani mercury. The money we get now from the mining companies in Brazil we trade for cocaine in Columbia and change that for Italian gold in Slovakia.'
    I stared at her.
    'We are not a fucking triad.' She refilled my glass.
    I looked at Money. She was serious. I looked at Zoe - her hungry eyes. They were monsters.
    'You want to demolish all that?'
    'Top Luck's just the weakest, the first to go,' Money sighed. 'But without Jimmy, everything else will come apart in time.'
    Zoe explained. 'When we launder money from Shenzhen, we take eighty percent. The market rate is only sixty, so why do our clients keep coming back to us? Last year we exported a consignment of caesium to Korea, and they insisted on paying us for red mercury. That's triple our expected profit and we - '
    'I don't want to know this,' I said.
    They tried again.
    I stood up. 'I don't want to know.'
    We're sitting on a time bomb, Adam - '
    'It had nothing to do with me.'
    'No,' Money agreed, coldly. 'But Top Luck has.'
    Slowly, clumsily, I sat down. My hand was shaking so much, Zoe had to take the glass off me before she could fill it.
    Money cocked her head on one side, examining me. 'How did you think you were keeping the enquiry at bay? Personal charm?'
    'Jimmy said - '
    'Jimmy protected Frank Hamley, too.'
    I tried picking up my drink. The rug was old but fuck it, I thought, whisky won't stain it. I wiped my chin.
    'I'm the one protecting you now,' Money said. I'm all that's standing between you and the inquiry. For the moment, you're safe. But it's only a matter of time before my bluff is called. Look at Hamley.'
    I looked at Zoe instead. She was studying the ice in the bottom of her glass. It had been Money's idea to get me drunk. That's why Zoe was still here. Money was using her daughter to soften me up. I thought about what would happen if I said yes to them. The work they would have me do. The lies I would have to tell Eva. The double life I would lead. Zoe's thin arms, her blind, hungry doll eyes. The androgynous scent of her skin, like a perfume.
    I thought about what would happen if I said no. About Hong Kong, about testifying at the inquiry, about what I would say. I thought about Jimmy's colleagues, clinging to the wreckage of their fractured empire, watching me from the gallery, watching me on TV, reading about me in the papers and on the internet, waiting for the moment when the gweilo starts to squeal.
    Or rather, not waiting. What load does it take to crack open a skull? Does the speed of the car make a difference? The pressure in the