Hammerlocke (Locke 2)

One

It smelt like an ambush. It shouldn't have. This wasn't some littered alley in Londonderry, I was standing on thick wool carpet among furniture made from two-inch teak, talking to a secretary who bought her clothes in Paris and had her makeup applied the way they spray fenders in a body shop.

But she was the giveaway. She was flustered, as if I'd walked in and found her saving her boss the bother of going all the way down to the massage parlor to have his dreams come true. She had trouble meeting my eyes and there was tension around her mouth that even her million-dollar Max Factor makeover couldn't conceal. She tried a tight little smile and told me that Mr. Ridley was expecting me and would I knock and enter. Like that, knock and enter.

So I knocked on the ten-foot-high door but because of my suspicion I waited for His Master's Voice. Behind me I heard the secretary gulp down a quick breath.

A fat man's voice said, "Come," and I shoved the door open. It swung wide to my right but I didn't saunter in. I checked through the crack down the edge, then stepped inside and took a quick pace to the left, turning to face the door as it swung shut.

In the glimpse I'd had of the room I could see no menace. Herbert Ridley Sr. was the soft man with the tan, safely behind his desk, both hands on top like a banker turning down a loan application. The guy in front of the desk was harder but forty pounds past fit. He had on the kind of glen check suit that cops buy at discounts from tailors on their beats. From the strain under the left armpit I knew he was carrying. I still wasn't alarmed. Applying for a job isn't a capital offense, he wouldn't shoot me.

I went to the other chair and nodded at Ridley. He was smirking, the corners of his mouth twitching at his private joke, probably the fact that the other guy had a gun. I said, "I'm John Locke, I've come about the job of protecting your son."

Ridley went Hollywood on me. He swung around to gaze out of his window, putting his feet up on his Chippendale escritoire. Over his shoulder he said, "You're supposed to be tough, Mr. Locke."

I ignored him and sat down. He waited but when nothing happened he looked back over his shoulder as if I were in the back seat of his Mercedes. "You're supposed to be tough," he said again.

"Unless you're planning to barbecue me, it shouldn't be a problem," I told him.

Now he did a bully boy laugh and spun around in his chair, swinging his feet down clumsily. He looked at me and then cocked his head back and laughed again. "Suppose I told you that Mr. Sullivan here spent two years in Viet Nam."

I turned to Sullivan. "Did you get a tattoo?" I asked politely but he was too busy looking menacing to take any notice.

Ridley was starting to lose patience. He'd written himself some kind of scenario here but I was getting all the good lines -- he didn't like that. "Sullivan was decorated twice," he said.

"Good for him, so was my mother's front parlor." I stood up. "I'm not sure what you're talking about but get to the point. Do you need a professional to look after your son or not?" I've found it never hurts to be forceful. It lets them know you're a hardnose, which is the business I'm in.

Sullivan spoke now in a growl he'd perfected in the service, I guessed, hazing recruits. "Shall I throw him out, Mr. Ridley?"

Ridley ignored him. "Tell me about yourself, Locke," he said. Sullivan was edging to the front of his seat, ready for what he thought would be a pounce.

"I'm ex-Cambridge, ex-Harvard, didn't finish either, and ex-SAS." I had finished that one, seven years, two of them in Northern Ireland, one in the Falklands and a lot of other work including getting my picture on television as I swung in through the window of the Iranian embassy in London.

"And now you're looking for work?" Ridley purred. He was going to play the money game. He had lots, I had none, nah-nah-nah.

"Right."

"Well, what qualifications have you got?" He waited. Maybe he didn't watch television and had never heard of the SAS. I didn't bite so he sighed and pushed on. "What makes you think you could take care of my son?"

"He's going to Italy. I've been there, I know a Giotto from a grilled cheese sandwich and I don't eat spaghetti with a knife and fork. An example like me might be useful to an eighteen-year-old dropout."

Sullivan made another little push to the front of his chair but not quite to the point of balance, I still had him pinned if he moved. Ridley spluttered. "Who're you calling a dropout?"

"I did my homework. He's had two arrests for joy-riding, no convictions. He was last seen trying to finish grade thirteen at Jarvis Collegiate. His marks aren't out yet but his teacher isn't holding his breath."

Ridley straightened up in his chair. "So you've been snooping, and I'm supposed to be impressed," he said, huffily. He should give up the Marlboros or quit balling his secretary and take up squash, I thought. Again I let him carry on and he did, blowing his surprise. "I've arranged a little test for you. With Mr. Sullivan's assistance."

"If it involves that cannon he's got under his arm, advise him against trying it," I said evenly. "If he goes for it I'll stick it up his nose."

Sullivan roared and sprang. At least he would have sprung if I hadn't hauled him out of his chair by the left wrist, tripped him over my foot and pinned him on the floor, face down, swearing into the deep pile. I locked his arm up his back and reached over his shoulder with my left hand. His gun was a U.S. Colt .45 automatic look-alike, an air pistol.

I stood back and let him get up while I uncapped the end and tipped out the little red paint balls inside, the kind that kids of all ages use in war games, if they've never been in the real thing.

Sullivan got up and dusted off his coat. He was angry but we both knew I could take him and he wasn't planning any more springing.

"An air pistol?" I said. "Why not a pop gun or one with a little flag that pokes out with 'Bang' written on it?" He didn't say anything so I slipped the pellets back into the magazine. Then I turned and fired at the Picasso print on the far wall. The paint round splatted all over it like tomato ketchup. Ridley howled with anger.

"You sonofabitch. That painting cost ten thousand bucks."

I turned and put two shots into him, splashing his beautiful vest and the tie with its yacht club insignia. He roared again, first at me, an unformed howl, then at Sullivan. "Get him. You can't let him get away with this."

I turned to Sullivan. "I guess you buy your own suits, so I'm not going to shoot you," I told him. "Just sit down."

I could see him working out the alternatives. Neither one was good. One way he got fired, the other way he got hurt. I guess firing was less painful. He sat and Ridley stood, swearing and swiping away at his ketchup stains with the sleeve of his Sea Island cotton shirt. I took the last pellets out of the gun and put them into my pocket. Then I dropped the gun on the floor beside Ridley's shining empty desk. "Don't call me, I'll call you," I told him and walked out.

Miss Lacquer was standing outside the door. I smiled at her. "You're going to be asked to get him a clean suit. Try not to hurry, a little humiliation is good for the soul."

She couldn't hold in her grin. "That was you, shooting?"

"Yes. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

"A pity they weren't real bullets," she whispered.

I grinned and gave her my card, which is a natty blue color with the words "John Locke, Physical Assurance" and my phone number.

"Call when the laundry's done, maybe we can cook up a scheme to keep his hands off you," I suggested and walked out into the air-conditioned bullpen where a hundred computer gnomes were clicking and beeping away at their little terminals, earning Ridley the money to play games with unemployed bodyguards. I sighed at the thought. Nothing had changed. He still had money and I still didn't, but at least I wouldn't be stuck saying "yes" to the fat bastard.

Copyright © 1986 by Jack Barnao