mark on this manservant guy – and no evidence that provided any leads.
I gave some thought to the manner in which Portman was killed. Dismemberment was murder’s equivalent of a nudist street parade. Obviously the perpetrators were either deeply disturbed or a couple of show-offs. Was there another reason I wasn’t seeing?
Ten minutes late, Masters breezed into the foyer wearing faded low-slung jeans with a heavy tooled leather belt and longhorned buckle, a navy fitted Tee that showed off her flat stomach, black Converse runners, a leather jacket and Ray-Ban Aviators. The NYFD cap had been replaced by a New York Yankees ball cap. Her hair was tied in a thick ponytail that bounced as she walked. Traffic? Hell, Masters could stop a tank.
‘You’re late,’ I said.
‘Phone call. And before you ask me any questions about it, none of your business.’ She tossed a brown paper bag in my direction.
‘What’s this?’
‘A present.’
I opened it and removed a red T-shirt.
‘To replace the one I hope you’ve just thrown away,’ she said. ‘Wear it with pride, partner.’
There was a graphic on the back of the T-shirt: the white crescent moon and shield of the Turkish national flag. I turned it over. On the front, printed in large white letters, was the word ‘Turkey’.
‘When you wear it, think of it as a caption,’ said Masters with a smirk.
‘Turkey?’
‘One good insult deserves another, Vin. Payback for the insults about Richard. And what’s with the character assassination anyway? You don’t know him. You don’t know anything about him.’
Masters was right, I didn’t know him, not personally, but what I knew of his reputation was enough to give me a fair portrait. ‘I was just passing along the opinion of several hundred vets suffering from various forms of cancer,’ I replied, ‘or whose babies have been born with three eyes and extra sets of legs. They refer to your future husband as “Colonel Dick Wad”, and they call him that because he’s doing his best to make sure the system screws them. So, were you helping Colonel Wad put evidence together for the class action he’s defending, the whole depleted uranium mess?’
‘Need-to-know, Cooper – and you don’t. I feel sorry for those people, but DU has proved to be safe. And his name is Colonel Wadding, okay?’
‘Try convincing the grown men and women with leukaemia hoping to get some compensation for doing a job no one said would kill them slow. I think they’d probably prefer to keep calling him names.’
Masters folded her arms tight. ‘Like always, you’re real quick to judge. Oh, and I was late because I was on the phone to Richard. He has to go to Incirlik. He’ll be in Istanbul the day after tomorrow. He said hewants to meet you – don’t ask me why. You can see then for yourself how wrong you are.’ She turned and stomped across the foyer towards the front door.
So Dick was coming to town. I could barely contain my excitement. I left the T-shirt she gave me on the couch and followed her towards the hotel exit. I wondered if Masters really knew this guy she was going to marry. She said she’d met him on holiday and then he pops back into her life years later with a proposal. Who does that?
As the revolving door released me onto the street, I saw a cab leave the forecourt with Masters in the back seat. Her hand was up against the glass giving me the bird.
The sudden booming of loudspeakers informed me that the faithful were again being called to prayer. Or to lunch, if, like me, you happened to be an infidel.
Cabs were queued out in front of the hotel. I picked one at random and settled into the back seat.
‘Where you going?’ asked the driver, a guy around forty years old with a black moustache the size and shape of a hair comb. He opened his door and threw his cigarette butt on the road.
I’d climbed in through a haze of second-hand smoke mixed with a strawberry air freshener. The seats were encased in
I gave some thought to the manner in which Portman was killed. Dismemberment was murder’s equivalent of a nudist street parade. Obviously the perpetrators were either deeply disturbed or a couple of show-offs. Was there another reason I wasn’t seeing?
Ten minutes late, Masters breezed into the foyer wearing faded low-slung jeans with a heavy tooled leather belt and longhorned buckle, a navy fitted Tee that showed off her flat stomach, black Converse runners, a leather jacket and Ray-Ban Aviators. The NYFD cap had been replaced by a New York Yankees ball cap. Her hair was tied in a thick ponytail that bounced as she walked. Traffic? Hell, Masters could stop a tank.
‘You’re late,’ I said.
‘Phone call. And before you ask me any questions about it, none of your business.’ She tossed a brown paper bag in my direction.
‘What’s this?’
‘A present.’
I opened it and removed a red T-shirt.
‘To replace the one I hope you’ve just thrown away,’ she said. ‘Wear it with pride, partner.’
There was a graphic on the back of the T-shirt: the white crescent moon and shield of the Turkish national flag. I turned it over. On the front, printed in large white letters, was the word ‘Turkey’.
‘When you wear it, think of it as a caption,’ said Masters with a smirk.
‘Turkey?’
‘One good insult deserves another, Vin. Payback for the insults about Richard. And what’s with the character assassination anyway? You don’t know him. You don’t know anything about him.’
Masters was right, I didn’t know him, not personally, but what I knew of his reputation was enough to give me a fair portrait. ‘I was just passing along the opinion of several hundred vets suffering from various forms of cancer,’ I replied, ‘or whose babies have been born with three eyes and extra sets of legs. They refer to your future husband as “Colonel Dick Wad”, and they call him that because he’s doing his best to make sure the system screws them. So, were you helping Colonel Wad put evidence together for the class action he’s defending, the whole depleted uranium mess?’
‘Need-to-know, Cooper – and you don’t. I feel sorry for those people, but DU has proved to be safe. And his name is Colonel Wadding, okay?’
‘Try convincing the grown men and women with leukaemia hoping to get some compensation for doing a job no one said would kill them slow. I think they’d probably prefer to keep calling him names.’
Masters folded her arms tight. ‘Like always, you’re real quick to judge. Oh, and I was late because I was on the phone to Richard. He has to go to Incirlik. He’ll be in Istanbul the day after tomorrow. He said hewants to meet you – don’t ask me why. You can see then for yourself how wrong you are.’ She turned and stomped across the foyer towards the front door.
So Dick was coming to town. I could barely contain my excitement. I left the T-shirt she gave me on the couch and followed her towards the hotel exit. I wondered if Masters really knew this guy she was going to marry. She said she’d met him on holiday and then he pops back into her life years later with a proposal. Who does that?
As the revolving door released me onto the street, I saw a cab leave the forecourt with Masters in the back seat. Her hand was up against the glass giving me the bird.
The sudden booming of loudspeakers informed me that the faithful were again being called to prayer. Or to lunch, if, like me, you happened to be an infidel.
Cabs were queued out in front of the hotel. I picked one at random and settled into the back seat.
‘Where you going?’ asked the driver, a guy around forty years old with a black moustache the size and shape of a hair comb. He opened his door and threw his cigarette butt on the road.
I’d climbed in through a haze of second-hand smoke mixed with a strawberry air freshener. The seats were encased in
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