Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin by David Wailing Page B

lucky – er, I mean… bye.”
    Click.
    Shit.
    I was pacing harder now. Bumping into things around my flat. Caged tiger. All I could think about was standing in front of Jake – telling him I’d lost his bike… his mad eyes… sound of breaking glass…
    Had to get it back. Had to track down that blonde guy. Had to find out what was going on.
    I rang my agent.
    “Make it quick, Scott,” he barked as soon as he answered his mobile. “I’m busy.”
    “You’re not working on a Saturday, are you Barry?”
    “As a matter of fact, I am, yes. I’m in the office.”
    “Right, I’m on my way round, be there in – ”
    “Well, actually I won’t be here for long. I’m off out in a bit. What do you want?”
    “Okay. Look, things have got a bit weird with the Hargreaves case. Last night there was somebody watching the – ”
    “Hey hey hey, that job should be finished by now!”
    “It is, it’s done. But I need to get in touch with Londonwide Associates. There was somebody else there last night, and he seemed to know who – ”
    “Look,” grunted Barry, “if you’ve done the business, that’s good enough. I’ve had Larry on the phone today. It’s looking more and more likely this big one’s coming our way. And when it does, I want you ready, all right?”
    I’d forgotten all about Larry and his six-figure mission. That should have been on my mind day and night, getting me excited. But right then, it didn’t seem nearly as real as having the jagged edges of a Newcastle Brown bottle rammed into my face.
    “Barry, listen, I need you to talk to Londonwide Associates for me, this is important, all right? I want to know if they put a second detective on the Hargreaves case.”
    “Why would they do that?”
    “I don’t know, but they might have done. I need to know more about the case, or why somebody else might be interested in it… and I want to know who’s paying for it. I don’t like not knowing who I’m working for, Barry.”
    “I don’t care if the client is Queen pissing Elizabeth as long as they pay up and we get our share. So leave it be, all right? We need to – ”
    “Telephone for Mr O’Nion!”
    “ – be ready to move as soon as Larry gives us the nod. So just – ”
    “New York office on line three!”
    “ – focus on that, Scott, all right?”
    “What the hell?” I could clearly hear a woman’s voice in the background. “Who’s that?”
    “Database has crashed! Computer says no!”
    Barry laughed. “Will you give it a rest!”
    “I need that presentation by two o’clock or it’s your ass!”
    I gaped at the sound of someone doing exactly what I’d done a couple of weeks ago – pretending to be an entire office full of people. Except this time, Barry wasn’t blowing a gasket at being interrupted. “Give over, you!” he chuckled. I heard a young woman’s laughter.
    The penny dropped. “Is that your niece?”
    “Er, yes. My niece. Little minx.”
    I thought of Barry’s niece walking past me and smiling. The blonde hair and dark eyebrows. The toned stomach. That arse. But mostly I remembered her smiling at me, and making playful remarks to a complete stranger. Confident as hell. With an arse that could launch a thousand ships. (Sorry if I’m overdoing her arse a bit. You really had to be there to see it. It was nothing short of arsetastic. Okay, I really will stop now.)
    And now here she was, coming out with the very same gag that I did… thinking along the same lines.
    Damn it. She sounded so cool.
    “Hey listen, how about I pop round and give you a hand…?”
    “No, don’t bother. We’re off out in a mo. Stuff to do. I’ll be in touch when I get the nod from Larry.”
    Click.
    Shit .
    I sank slowly into an armchair. Barry’s niece had actually made me forget that I was two days away from having my bollocks ripped off.
    For a while I just sort of sat there, in limbo. The sunlight was streaming in through my window, it was a Saturday, I probably had a