Free Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird Page B

too quickly, as if another child had tried to take it off him.
    ‘Quite, quite. Well, I’d anticipated that and sent you an e-mail with a contact list for Syder earlier.’ Danny heard the tap-dancing of far-off typing and an e-mail,headed SYDER CONTACTS , from Freeman, appeared on his screen. Danny stopped listening again.
     
    Ian was leaning back, unfolded, with his hands locked together behind his head. His posture was one of a man who has taken the board on and won, but his stare was fully engaged, and directed now at three men in suits sitting two tables over. They were laughing loudly and Ian was willing them to stop. Geordie hadn’t turned up yet, though it was ten past and he was starting to think he’d underestimated the little shit. One of the suits was working himself up to say something, but had looked to be doing that since Ian sat down twenty minutes ago. The main mouth, an overweight owl who smiled reflexively and broadly after everything he said, was telling another anecdote.
    ‘So I leaned across to him and said You’ll just have to trust me .’
    The three of them laughed loudly again. One of his attendants, grinning, asked, ‘Why didn’t you tell him to just, you know, foxtrot oscar?’
    The fat one rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together while pursing his lips and lowering his eyebrows so his phizog was puckered in close, as if he were trying to squeeze his facial features through a bangle.
    ‘Money. All about the lettuce. Even Dave knows that.’
    He nodded towards the other man, who tilted his head, guffawed obligingly.
    Ian brought his open palms down on the table so they made enough of a noise to attract the attention of all three men, then stood, pressing hard against the table to flexhis triceps in their tight blue polo-shirt sleeves, and walked purposefully to the swing door. It wasn’t that he minded people enjoying themselves. He minded them talking rubbish. And he minded people being impressed by slick and noisy idiots. Ian had the kind of dislike for blokes in suits that men can have who only don a two-piece when they’re in serious trouble (before the bench, at the altar, in the coffin). As he was standing in front of the pub door, looking out, Geordie’s face appeared like a mismatched reflection. For a second they were shocked to see each other so close, even through glass, and Ian shuffled back, embarrassed, as Geordie pushed the door open.
    ‘Big man,’ Geordie said. Ian took the outstretched hand, and felt Geordie’s pipe cleaner fingers bend in his clasp. Malleable. Ian had ironed out some options, and shelved them in order of desirability. His mind was as neat as the pebbledashed terraced he shared with no one. Ideally, Geordie would spill everything and tell him where the money was. Then, if that didn’t happen, he wanted Geordie to get drunk and ask him back, today, to the house of this friend he was staying with, or, if for some reason he couldn’t swing that, he wanted an invite to go round there, and soon. All of this might go out the window, of course, if Geordie appeared to be a risk. He might just beat the shit out of him. Ian, however, prided himself on judgement. He could read a man the way the others in the wing had read the Sunday Sport . And while they read the Sunday Sport , he had been reading his Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. He was politic and ruthless. And he would get what he wanted, which was things in order.
    Geordie, conversely, wanted distraction, and one of its major subsets, drink.
    ‘And what about your business down here? How’s all that going?’
    They were both settled at the table, one hand chilled round a Guinness, the other, propping a lit fag, beginning to smoulder.
    ‘Not bad. I’ve got it all lined up. Just waiting for one thing to arrive and then I’ll probably be heading back over.’
    ‘What is it then, that you do, I mean?’
    ‘Import-export really. Just starting up. Having a look round. Seeing what opportunities are out