Dead Men's s Boots

Sorry, I thought I said that already. Anyway, you know the way these things work, probably better than I do. There’s always a market for celebrity souvenirs. And it’s kind of like an iceberg – some of it’s above the water, most of it isn’t.’

‘Sure,’ Nicky said. He seemed mollified now. Whatever I’d said to upset him, he’d either bounced back from it or else filed it away for later. I still couldn’t figure out what had got under his skin in that way, but right then didn’t seem like the best time to ask.

‘So,’ I summed up, shielding my eyes as the sun unexpectedly broke through the clouds, ‘you think you could lay your hands on something?’

He nodded a few times, not in answer to the question but acknowledging that it was an interesting commission. ‘Funnily enough,’ he said, shooting me another narrow-eyed stare, as if warning me off making any smart one-liners, ‘I’ve got some contacts in that line of business.’

‘No kidding?’

‘No kidding.’ Nicky slid away along the bench, out of the patch of sunlight.

He might have reclaimed the day, but he was clearly going to be selective about which parts of it he kept. ‘I’m not making any promises. Stuff like that doesn’t come up for sale too often, and when it does it tends to go for crazy prices. Supply and demand. There’s a whole lot of sickos out there, and only so many dead serial killers. You might not want to pay the asking price.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘That’s why I said we should keep the payment issue open for the time being.

We’d only be looking to have this thing in our hands for, like, a day. Maybe we could rent it.’

‘Buy it, sell it on again,’ Nicky mused. It was obvious that he saw the potential there: two transactions in quick succession, with commission to be made twice over. ‘Yeah, maybe. Who’s this “we”, by the way, and what do you want this little keepsake for?’

I got up. ‘Call me if you get a bite,’ I said. ‘Or if you click on what the fuck is going on in that notebook. Sooner the better, Nicky.

I’m kind of under the gun on both of these.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s life,’ Nicky observed.

When a dead man says that, he means it’s somebody else’s problem.

11

Sometimes synchronicity is your friend. Everything flows together, and the thing you’re looking for just turns out to be in the first place where your groping fingers vingcome down. Much as I complain about my luck, even I get days like that. But this wasn’t feeling like one.