The Papers of Tony Veitch by William McIlvanney Read Free Book Online Page A

stop,’ Milligan said. ‘I’ve got his balls in a vice. He’s mine. He’s in with Hook Hawkins. I’ve told him he’s got to come up with something about Paddy Collins. I’m sure he can. He better.’
    â€˜Just watch he doesn’t make it up.’
    Milligan laughed.
    â€˜Be like ordering his headstone. Nah. Macey’s not that simple. He’ll do me a wee turn. I’m seeing him tonight. Guess where?’
    Harkness shrugged.
    â€˜The Albany.’
    â€˜The Albany? You’re kidding. That’s a helluva place to meet a tout.’
    â€˜Isn’t it?’
    â€˜Like asking him to advertise.’
    â€˜Isn’t it? He was going to renege. Couldn’t believe it. Shouting down the phone. But I made him agree. I’ll bet he had to wade through his actual excrement to get out the phone-box.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I want him feeling vulnerable. As if he’s left his cover in the house.’ Milligan winked. ‘You in a hurry?’
    â€˜Aye,’ Harkness said. ‘Jack wants me to meet up with him early.’
    â€˜You going to get these dishes? I’ll get ready. I want to be busy-busy today. Listen. I’ll be in the Admiral late this afternoon, if you’ve the time. We could have a jar. If your guts have recovered.’
    When they went down into the street, Harkness looked up at a sky like a dustbin-lid. It fitted his hangover. He was wishing he could share Milligan’s joviality, when a long-haired young man in jeans, looking back, bumped into Milligan. The young man looked at Milligan without apologising.
    â€˜Fuck off before I step on you,’ Milligan said and started laughing.
    Harkness remembered something Laidlaw had said about Milligan’s laughter – ‘It’s the sound of bones breaking.’
    He settled for his hangover.

 
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    8
    I n the bar of the Gay Laddie, John Rhodes’ favourite pub in the Calton, the beginning – and some said the end – of the East End of Glasgow, there was what felt like a crowd. There was Macey and Dave McMaster and Hook Hawkins. The rest of them were John Rhodes.
    In spite of his experience, Macey never failed to be awed by John. It was nothing specific. It wasn’t his size, which was considerable. It wasn’t just the crazy lightness of his eyes, blue as a brochure sea. There was no external you could finally attach the feeling to. Perhaps it had something to do with the sense of accumulated past violence John carried, bad places been to and come back from. The effect his presence had on Macey was of conveying danger, as if his life was a matter of juggling with liquid oxygen. And always the feeling found itself relegated to recurring mirage by his easy naturalness.
    Looking at John now, pouring four mugs of tea from the pot that Dave had brewed in the back, Macey was freshly aware of the combustible contradictions that were John Rhodes. Their presence here was part of them. They were meeting in the pub because John would allow no intrusion from the violent ways he made his money to disturb the home where his wifeand two daughters might as well have had a bank-manager as the breadwinner.
    The thought of that strangeness was echoed by the strangeness of the place. It was about half-past nine in the morning and, slanting down from the high windows that were slits of glass reinforced with mesh, the shafts of light were constellated with motes and gave the still, quiet pub an incongruous solemnity, like a chapel with a gantry. The ritual of the tea completed, the high priest spoke.
    â€˜Hook,’ he said. ‘Tell me the truth. You know whit Cam Colvin’s on about?’
    Hook Hawkins appealed to the bar. His upturned head moved as if deliberately displaying the scar that ran down his left cheek and under his chin. Some said his nickname came from that, because it had been given to him by a man with a hook for a hand. Others said