Butcher by Campbell Armstrong

think.’
    â€˜You don’t have time.’
    â€˜Oh, I should be in a hurry to do Perlman a favour, the man who incarcerated me? What is this individual alleged to have done?’
    â€˜He cut off somebody’s hand. A clean cut.’
    â€˜Why come to me? There are skilled cutters all over this city of damned souls. There are Muslim butchers and kosher butchers and abattoir butchers and butchers who churn out T-bone steaks and lamb chops. What makes you think this was somebody who worked for me?’
    â€˜Because you know more bonecutters than anybody I can think of. Why shouldn’t I come to you? How many kids assisted you?’
    â€˜Who knows, thirty, forty. More.’
    â€˜At your trial I remember the prosecutor claimed at least a hundred, low estimate. You had a crowd coming and going.’
    â€˜Such a gift for exaggeration that shmendrik . Only to make me seem more a monster and win for himself a bigger sentence, bigger headlines.’
    â€˜I’ll give you fifty pounds for a name.’
    â€˜Pah. Fifty doesn’t go far. I have Issy, this sorry creature, to feed. Admittedly my own needs are tiny. Tea, bread, a little margarine.’
    â€˜OK, sixty.’
    â€˜A hundred.’
    â€˜You’re crazy. Seventy-five.’
    â€˜Eighty.’
    â€˜Done.’
    â€˜Plus one for Issy.’
    â€˜What is that animal anyway?’
    â€˜Issy is more than an animal, Perlman.’
    Perlman didn’t ask. Tartakower was fond of riddles.
    Perlman took his wallet from his back pocket. ‘I want the name now.’
    â€˜My brain, my poor memory, sometimes fuzzy … also keep in mind many of these boys came with made-up names, they didn’t want to work under their own identities, who can blame them? I had a Donald Duck working for me. A Mahatma Ghandi also.’
    â€˜Come to the point,’ Perlman said.
    Tartakower shrugged.
    â€˜You push me, Perlman. I could get into mounds of shite helping you. Giving out information, these kids don’t want to be remembered—’
    Perlman made to stick his wallet back, and Tartakower said, ‘Jackie Ace, he comes first to mind.’
    â€˜Not his real name, I assume?’
    â€˜What do you think? A flash boy with fingers, a sweetheart cutter. With a surgical saw, he cut like a dream. This is natural, this you don’t learn. But something wrong.’ Tartakower tapped his chest and frowned. ‘Something you sense.’
    â€˜Sense, like how?’
    â€˜Off, Perlman. Something off. How more explicit you want?’
    Perlman shrugged. ‘An example of strange behaviour would be a start.’
    â€˜They were all strange in their own ways, these boys.’
    â€˜You any idea where he lives?’
    â€˜I look to you a street directory?’
    â€˜What else do you remember about him?’
    â€˜Jackie Ace made friends easily. Played cards, took some of the other boys for a bundle. Poker, brag, always a winner. Did he cheat? Sure, but who could accuse him? Hands like his could’ve plucked a feather off a goose and the goose wouldn’t blink. Also he did card magic.’
    â€˜What does he look like?’
    â€˜What is this – Mastermind ?’
    Perlman laid money on the table, hoping the sight of green would encourage Tartakower, who squeezed his eyes in an act of remembering. He looked constipated. ‘What else you need to know? He’s got red hair and green eyes? He’s eight feet tall humpbacked? If it was me searching for Jackie, I’d go where people gamble on cards.’
    â€˜Casinos.’
    â€˜Fast as a rabbit fucking, Perlman.’
    â€˜Faster,’ Perlman said. Jackie Ace, he thought. You start somewhere. The detection of every crime has a point of origin, that uncertain place where you have the first flutter. It pays off sometimes. Most times not.
    Tartakower picked up the money, stuffed it into his pockets. ‘So call again. We’ll