Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,88

had died in a high-speed car chase a dozen years ago. Now Joey was twenty, trying and fail¬ing to live up to the old man's expectations. The trouble with Joey was that, temperamentally, he took after his mother, a gentle Irish woman who had never quite recov¬ered from the shock of discovering that the man she had agreed to marry was a gangster rather than a respectable secondhand-car salesman. Joey had none of the Di Salvo ruthlessness and all the Costello kindness. He was never going to make it as a villain, but his grandfather would have to be six feet under before Joey got the chance to find out what his real metier was. Until then, Collar was going to be faced with people like me bringing him the bad news.

"His fly-posting business is suffering. I won't insult your intelligence by outlining the problem. I'm sure you know all about Detective Inspector Lovell. I'm sure you also know that conventional means of dealing with the problem are proving ineffective because of Lovell's access to law enforcement. Joey's difficulty happens to coincide with that of my client, and I'm offering to provide a solu¬tion that will make this whole thing go away." I stopped talking and took a sip of the lethal brew in my cup. My mouth felt sulphurous and dark, like the pits of hell.

"Very commendable," he said, one liver-spotted hand reaching inside his jacket and emerging with a cigar that could have doubled as a telegraph pole.

"I need your help to make it work," I continued as he chopped the end off his cigar and sucked indecently on it. "I need Tony Tambo's cooperation, and I don't have suffi¬cient powers of persuasion to secure it."

"And you hope ..." puff, "that in exchange ..." puff, "for you getting Joey off the hook..." puff, "I will per¬suade Tony to help?"

"That's exactly right, Mr. Di Salvo."

"Why you want Tambo?"

"DI Lovell has been keeping a low profile. Not a lot of people know he's behind these attempts to take over the turf. But Tony's already had a face-to-face with him, so the man's got nothing to lose by coming in to a meeting. All Tony has to do is set it up. I'll do the rest. It's my head on the block, nobody else's."

Collar nodded. He closed his eyes momentarily. That didn't stop him abusing my airspace with his cigar. His eyes opened and he stared into mine. Any more ham and he could have opened a deli counter. "You got it," he said. "Unless you hear otherwise, the meet will be at Tambo's club, half past eight, tonight. Okay?"

"Okay." I didn't want to ask how he was going to get it sorted that fast. To be honest, I didn't want to know. I stood up and was about to thank him when he said men¬acingly, "You don't like your coffee?"

I'd had enough of playing games. "It looks like sump oil and tastes worse," I said.

I thought he was going to bite the end off his cigar. Then he smiled, like a python who finds a dancing mouse too entertaining to eat. I paid for both coffees on the way out, though. I'm not that daft.

Eight o'clock and Delia Prentice had her hand down the front of my most audacious underwired bra. We were in an interview room at Bootle Street nick, and Delia was making sure the radio mike was firmly anchored to the infrastructure of my cleavage. If Lovell paid the kind of attention to breasts that most Vice cops are prone to, I didn't want anything showing that shouldn't be. Nipples were one thing, radio mikes another altogether.

"Right," said Delia. "He's not going to spot that unless things get rather more out of hand than we're anticipating." She stepped back and gave me the once-over. I'd gone for a shiny gun-metal Lycra leotard over black leggings and the black hockey boots I normally reserved for a bit of cat burglary. Draped over the leotard was an old denim jacket with slashed sleeves that revealed the temporary tattoos I'd got stenciled on both biceps. The makeup aimed for the recovering junkie look, the hair was gelled into a glossy hel¬met. "Very tasteful," she commented.

"You can talk," I muttered. Delia wore a white shirt with the collar turned up and the buttons undone almost as far as her navel. The shirt tucked into a black Lycra skirt a little wider than the average weightlifter's belt. Her legs were bare, her